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19 March 2011

Rating System Challenge 2011: Pomeroy Bracket Prevails in Field of 64

I pitted all elevensystem-determinedbrackets—plus a pure chalk bracket and a Preseason AP Poll bracket—against each other in an ESPN Tournament Challenge group to see how they'd perform. Here are the results after the first full round of competition.

PPR = possible points remaining; PCT = performance relative to the ESPN Tournament Challenge community. For instance, current leader Pomeroy as well or better than 97.7% of entries.

RNK

ENTRY

R64

R32

S16

E8

FF

NCG

CHAMPION

PPR

TOTAL

PCT

1

Pomeroy

260

0

0

0

0

0

Ohio St

1580

260

97.7

2

FiveThirtyEight

250

0

0

0

0

0

Ohio St

1580

250

92.4

2

Pure Chalk

250

0

0

0

0

0

Ohio St

1580

250

92.4

2

LRMC Bayesian

250

0

0

0

0

0

Ohio St

1440

250

92.4

5

Preseason AP Poll

240

0

0

0

0

0

Duke

1220

240

79.3

6

Jeff Sagarin

230

0

0

0

0

0

Ohio St

1580

230

61.6

6

Sonny Moore

230

0

0

0

0

0

Ohio St

1580

230

61.6

6

ESPN Decision Tree

230

0

0

0

0

0

Kansas

1560

230

61.6

6

Nolan Power Index

230

0

0

0

0

0

Kansas

1540

230

61.6

11

ESPN National Bracket

220

0

0

0

0

0

Ohio St

1580

220

41.5

11

Lunardi RPI

220

0

0

0

0

0

Kansas

1560

220

41.5

11

NCAA Official RPI

220

0

0

0

0

0

Kansas

1560

220

41.5

13

Vegas

210

0

0

0

0

0

Ohio St

1580

210

24.1

Analysis after the jump.

It's early yet, but the chalkiest brackets have the most total points with the most possible points remaining. Clearly, this is the result of most of the systems picking the wrong upsets—and a general dearth of first round upsets. Of the eleven upsets predicted by two or more systems, only five actually occurred.